La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico

PHOTO 1: No stranger to these fishing reports, Cole Chavira (11) poses with a nice dorado and sisters Monica (20) and Gabi (18). They’re from the San Diego area and Cole always nails big fish down here. Dorado were once again the backbone of the catch this past week typical of July fishing.

PHOTO 2: This is another photo that’s suitable for framing! Love having dads and kids down. Wally Lee took time out from Wells Fargo board meetings to bring the family and took youngster Aiden out to pull on some dorado. The young man did just fine! They fished north of La Paz and got this on live bait.

PHOTO 3: Some people come down to Baja their whole lifetimes hoping to get a sniff from a wahoo. Casey Barber got one her first day out fishing with our Las Arenas fleet. (See her on the video clip). She was pretty excited. The fish scaled at 34 pounds. Early in the week, the wahoo were crashing the boats.

PHOTO 4: Sometimes I think Mitch Chavira has a professional photographer follow him and his family out when they go fishing. They ALWAYS get great shots…and outstanding fishing! Mitch comes down several times a year and holds up a big bull dorado he caught out’ve La Paz.

PHOTO 5: Another week of football tuna! The bite tapered later in the week, but earlier…the fish were blasting just off the point at Punta Arenas. Greg Jones from Bakersfield pulled a couple like this out using live bait.

PHOTO 6: Big headed bull dorado! George Simpson (holding the tail) fished with us for the first time this past week but got tuna, wahoo and dorado like this one. He’s aided by Captain Jorge and son Damon. He was fishing with our Tailhunter Las Arenas Fleet.

PHOTO 7: Dorado were our bread-and-butter-fish this week which is more typical of a summer bite. Tony Adamich on the left with Gary Skul from Colorado and John Mramor from Atlanta after a day of fishing with our Tailhunter La Paz fleet.

PHOTO 8: Hardcore! This is Romie Gonzalez. He loves his sushi and sashime. Someoen passed him a piece of sailfish to take home and he immediately took a bite! Can’t argue with the freshness! But I like mine chilled with soy and wasabi!

PHOTO 9: Our good buddy, Barry Wood, went out with Captain Chito out of La Paz and hooked this awesome dorado on bait. Daughter, Andrea, helps out. They’re both from Orange Co, CA.

PHOTO 10: Three of our favorite guys…Steve Herron and his boys Jackson and Austin…all hailing from Park City UT, got quite a haul of fish over 4 days. Here they show off yellowfin tuna as well as Austin’s wahoo. caught with our Las Arenas fleet.

PHOTO 11 – We could not have asked for a funner lady to be fishing. Di Rosas was so excited about cathing this yellowtail…about 25 pounds…that she was almost dancing on the beach. It was her first fish! Very strange to get yellowtail this time of the year as they’re usually caught in the spring, not the sweltering heat of summer, but several fish in the 20-45 pound class were hooked this past week.

BIG VARIETY OF PELAGIC SPECIES INCLUDING DORADO- WAHOO- BILLFISH AND TUNA HIGHLIGHT THE WEEK!

La Paz/ Las Arenas Fishing Report for the week of July 11-18, 2009

Just another super week of fishing here. The last 2 or 3 weeks have been unseasonably great. Maybe it’s the fact that the waters or air temperature are hotter than normal, because it’s over 100 every day. Waters are a good 5 degrees hotter than normal and it sure is muggy, but the fishing has been good to spectacular. Normally, mid-summer, we’re locked into dorado. Nothing wrong with that. Dorado are our bread-and-butter fish here in La Paz for a good part of the year. However, school-sized dorado are the norm about now…5 to 20 pound fish.

Well, at least for a month, sure, we’ve got the punks, but also, big bulls are solidly here as well. Fish in the 30-50 pound class have been smoking drags for weeks! But, the best surprise is the other species that have been pounding our two fleets. Football-sized yellowfin tuna in the 10-20 pound class showed up about 2 weeks ago just off the shore near Las Arenas and it’s been an easy run (swim?) to the spot and limits have been the rule rather than the exception. On top of it, wahoo charged into the foray about a week ago also where the pangas were getting 2-4 hookups per day (notice I didn’t say they were “catching” that many as many fish were lost!), but it’s made for some exciting fishing to have free swimming wahoo around the boat willing to bite bait, lures and trolled Rapalas and Marauder and Yo Zuris. (THE CD-18 size..if you’re wondering…if you use the small ones, they’ll swallow them and BLINK…you’re cut off!)

Fishing did slow a bit at the end of the week as we got some weather patterns overhead and the barometric pressure changed, but overall, it just seemed like they were glitches and anomalies. If the tuna didn’t bite, then the dorado bit and vise-versa. Hard for anyone to complain! Overall, just some good solid fishing!

Additionally, we’ve still got roosterfish in the shallows and striped, blue, and black marlin cruising the areas eating the smaller tuna and dorado as well as into the bait schools. Not many sails this year, but we get a few hookups a week. Kudos to all the guys releasing their billfish!

Oh…and surprise…BIG yellowtail showed up as well…way out of season. These fish must have been lost, but off Las Arenas we caught several fish in the 20-40 pound class!

That’s our story! We have a full week of fishermen here…we’re loaded so we’ll have some full reports for you coming up!